


The Dream

by I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning



Series: Obitine Week 2018 [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: "Sad" Ending, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Heavy Angst, Mandalore's Child Soldiers Acknowledged, ObiTine Week, ObitineWeek2018, Pre-Pacifist Satine, Satine Choosing Pacifism and Why, The Immortality of an Idea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-27
Updated: 2018-09-27
Packaged: 2019-07-18 10:52:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16116908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning/pseuds/I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning
Summary: Satine Kryze wanted to redefine what it meant to be Mandalorian, to give the future a chance, and maybe keep her people from extinction. Obi-Wan wanted to keep a galaxy out of the hands of the Sith.Neither of them lived to see such things last... but unlike heroes, the idea for a better tomorrow never dies.





	The Dream

 

It had been a dream.

A wild, bewildering, _impossible_ dream: for a people who for seven thousand years had near worshiped violence and conquest and waging war for money or glory or fame... to _stop killing._

Obi-Wan had been shocked that Satine was determined to at least try to make it a reality. It was so _bewildering,_ the amount of _change_ that would have to happen, for people who clung so tightly to their right to kill, their right to hate their brothers because they were born into the wrong clan, or the wrong planet....

Satine herself had been shocked at how drastic the measures taken would have to be. “Fighting only for good reason” wasn't a line that would _work,_ because Force knew that _any_ reason was a _good enough reason_ to her people _._

Clan Rook in eons past stole a herd animal from Clan Eldar, and now they must murder one another in border skirmishes and wars for the rest of time.

Because of a fripping _cow._

Both Clans would look at you and express how _justified_ the continued bloodshed was, however.

The Civil War where the tribes of Mandalore nearly _wiped themselves out_ had been the last straw for Satine, and as she seized control of the whole damn mess she set aside her armor, set aside the Mandalorian reaction of violence _first_ and _always_ , and studied and _learned_ what other options could be used, instead of violence, to solve conflict.

It hadn't been complete, of course. There had been those who bombed shrines to Mandalore's past, or attacked the hospitals and schools she built. And when she had them banished— to Mandalorian soil, still, she didn't deny them _home_ entirely— they painted themselves as martyrs.

All they wanted was to be allowed to kill a man if he insulted them, to kill a brother if he married into the wrong clan, to kill a man for a feud no one could really remember because the beginning of that hatred had its foundation thousands of years earlier and all of those pointless ancestors were _dead._ How could you _possibly_ deny them access to making decisions for Mandalore as a whole?

Still.

For nineteen years, Satine's insane, wild dream _held true._

Mandalorians set aside their weapons, and experimented with art. With learning. Instead of placing blasters in the hands of their seven-year-olds and teaching them to kill, those children went to _school,_ and learned to dream too.

They didn't have to be child soldiers. They could learn to be scientists, or authors, or artists, or architects, they could walk the streets of their cities without fearing a land mine might go off and rip away one of their legs.

For nineteen years, one precious generation of children born and reaching adulthood...

The dream held true.

Then, of course, the delicate equilibrium was toppled over into nightmare again, not by the Mandalorian people, but by a Sith. Of course, a Sith.

A Sith wanting to harm Obi-Wan, no less.

There was horror in his eyes, and self-blame, Obi-Wan could _see_ everything she'd fought so hard and given up so much to build crumbling around them, the screaming of the mob outside the door, the golden glow of Sith eyes here. A Sith who didn't give a kark about the people here, or what would become of them, or of the future.

Sith only wanted power.

And the Mandalorian people, once stirred up, were only too ready to hate and kill again, because it hadn't been a long enough peace, they still _remembered_ how _good_ it felt, the visceral rush of power in the blood when they took a life.

Hate is easy. Violence, even easier.

Satine knew she would die here, in this wreckage and dawning of the nightmare.

She didn't regret one step of this bitter, difficult road she had traveled.

And while Obi-Wan was tearing himself up inside, all Satine desired was for him to find peace.

_We weren't promised a happy ending, Love. We were simply given life, spheres of influence, and the opportunity to make things better if we dared._

_We both dared. It cost us much._

But Satine knew she had used every _ounce_ of her being toward something _truly good,_ truly decent, truly noble. And while Obi-Wan did not share her views on pacifism, he had recognized that Mandalore was a powderkeg, and that keeping all fire away from the damn magazine of the sailing vessel made a frip-ton of sense.

_My battle was one of wills._

There was an entire generation of Mandalorians who believed in the future, who were hiding now, horrified by what their parents were doing, but who would come into their own and find their strength later.

Satine did not know how long it would take for them to take their land and _end_ Maul's hold on it, and _throw down_ the warmongers who masked their thirst to kill other Mandalorians as patriotism and love for family.

_They kill me today, my Love, but no one can kill an idea._

Satine did not live to see the dawning of a new era of hope, but then again, neither did Obi-Wan.

Their role was to fight until they had nothing left but life to give, and then to give that, in the protection and inspiring of a younger generation, a newer generation.

Without their struggles and sacrifices, the future would not have been possible.

The dream did not die that day on Mandalore, and it did not die when the Empire stole freedom from the galaxy.

It hibernated.

And decades, _decades_ later...

The dreams unfurled with renewed beauty after the fires of Sith and First Order and hell and hate had forged them into something that could not be stopped.

Hope was something more than a single person, a single place, a single generation, a single time, a single era.

And hope _always_ returns.

 

 


End file.
